Carl Brewer is familiar to Wichitans and Kansas Democrats, and his plan is to make himself well-known throughout Kansas before primary election polls open on Aug. 7, 2018.
On Monday Brewer announced his candidacy for governor on the Democratic ticket. With Gov. Sam Brownback leaving office in two years, the open seat is certain to draw a crowd.
Brewer’s early entry casts him as a force of definite magnitude, and gives him a leg up with the annual Washington Days Democratic gathering in Topeka next week.
He is the lone Democrat officially in the race, though speculation is Paul Davis, Lawrence attorney and former representative, is likely to consider another run. Davis gave Brownback a go of it in 2014, with strong support in northeast Kansas, but he failed to resonate with voters in populous Wichita and west of U.S. 81.
One Republican, Wink Hartman, a Wichita oil man, has announced he would run. Also on the GOP side, Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Attorney General Derek Schmidt are expected to consider running.
BREWER, 59, is a fascinating candidate. With Dale Goter, a lobbyist and political commentator as his campaign chairman, Brewer has a keen mind in his corner. Also, with nearly 400,000 Wichitans and tens of thousands more nearby, Brewer has a built-in constituency.
Brewer was Wichita’s first elected African-American mayor in 2007, and won re-election with 69 percent of the vote in 2011, defeating Carlos Mayans, a former legislator, mayor and popular Cuban refugee who came to Wichita as a child.
“What I look at is a community and a state that needs leadership,” Brewer told reporters a month ago, when word began to circulate he was considering a run. He graduated from Wichita North High School in 1975, and attended Friends University before spending 30 years in aviation — Boeing, Spirit and Cessna, the latest in government relations with Spirit.
Kansas government has been in a tight-fisted Republican grip the past several years. Democrats made inroads in the Kansas House this year, increasing their presence to 40 of 125, and were instrumental in passage late last week of a bill to restore most income tax cuts that occurred in 2012-13. Of the 40 Democrats, 36 joined Republicans to give the measure a 76-48 margin.
That was the first indication of substance the pendulum truly had swung from a staunch ultra-conservative Republican position in the House.
TWO YEARS ago Jeff Longwell, who succeeded Brewer in the mayor’s office, told the Wichita Eagle “… people got to the see the real Carl Brewer” in 2007 when Greensburg, 110 miles to the west, was devastated by a tornado. State and federal governments designated Wichita as a staging area, and Brewer, as mayor, had a key role in making all work smoothly.
“His military training (21 years in the National Guard) allowed him to quickly lay out what we needed to do,” Longwell said. “… his leadership then set the tone for how we’d cooperate with our friends and neighbors. He was really, really good.”
During his tenure Brewer was inclusive, drawing in youngsters for his Mayor’s Youth Council, and then listened to what they had to say. With racial tensions an issue, Brewer was supportive when body cameras were mentioned for police officers. They had the devices well ahead of many other cities.
He wasn’t a talking head for any particular demographic.
Brewer told an Eagle reporter: “Wichita is a big city, but it is also a small city. So if you are selling drugs, or doing something else that you should not be doing, and then try to make the argument that you were racially profiled … we’re probably going to know. And in some cases, we’re probably going to say … ‘Oh, come on.’ Because we’re going to know what the history is.”
Brewer’s chance of winning the Democratic nomination, or winning in November 2018 and becoming the first black governor of Kansas, will be determined months from now. Getting an early start doesn’t hurt, though.
One is thing certain, the race from both sides of the political fence has drawn early interest and is bound to have several candidates involved before voters go to the polls for the primary election.
Nothing could be better than to have solid choices all around at such a critical time in our state’s history. If the bill to restore income taxes becomes law, the budget mess looming for the next two fiscal years will somewhat be resolved, but there still will be much to do: Redirect education on a course to better outcomes; put money back into highway construction and improvements; lift up the needy and downtrodden; and put the Kansas economy on a bullish track.
Whom to give the reins in two years is a decision of immense importance.
— Bob Johnson
